This is a discussion on working on my instrument cluster.. within the Interior Mods forums, part of the Tech & Modifying & General Repairs category; I finally got a Tactrix cable and played around with it a little in logging mode today. I still don't ...

working on my instrument cluster..

I finally got a Tactrix cable and played around with it a little in logging mode today. I still don't have all the kinks worked out, but I think you can get the gist of what I'm aiming for. The display on the laptop is too bright for the pics, so I included a close up so you can actually see what's on there.

Now I think I want to see if I can get some red needles on the main gauge cluster, and do something about the factory clock. I would like to make it blue, but I might just black it out since I've got a clock display on my HU.

How did you mount the laptop? Can you move it or like hide it when you leave your car in a parking lot?

Honestly, I haven't even mounted it yet, lol. I've been wanting to fabricate some kind of swivel top laptop holder, but I don't see how I'm going to make it fit where my wife can still ride comfortably in the passenger seat. I'll have to see how much aluminum I have left over after making my skid plate. Then I might just make a drop in stand and secure the laptop via Velcro strips. I doubt my wife will want the laptop in her face every time we take a road trip, so it will have to be easily removable.

Originally Posted by wrathc5525

looks sick kinda interested in were u got the speedo gauges from and the how u changed all the hear controls lights? looks sick tho keep up the good work

I actually don't know where the speedo gauges came from. You might try searching reverse indiglo gauges for a WRX. It seems like all the links I find these days are dead now.

Originally Posted by jeremy96gase

These look awesome!
I want to have a setup like that.

I think you are going to need to adjust your boost, coolant temp, and A/F background fields.

Romraider's gauge display is a little less than desired. I'm still working on this. I might end up just using Sawmill to display them, but it's not the most attractive display either. What I really need to do is create my own skin for Romraider, and program custom gauge displays for it.. but with a baby due any day now I doubt I'll be getting to that any time soon.

yea i hate that stock green if i could put in order colors i hate for the interior lights green would be on the bottom i think what im gunna end up doing is getting like a glowshift boost gauge set it to red a aem wideband they are already red get a 04 sti gauge cluster that is red buy the gauge pod that puts to gauges on the bottom corners of the speedometer that way it all kinda looks stock then when i do the sti 6mt swap ill have the computer overlay light for the dccd controller on my speedo already an everything will look like bone stockish looks awsome tho i like the blue if i could get the wideband blue id change to blue but were did u get your tactrix cable from

^^ I'm having a very hard time reading this. Caps, punctuation, and paragraph breaks do wonders for readability.

I got the tactrix cable from tunertools.com. And the HVAC lights are super easy and cheap to change. I believe I found the part number for the LEDs on here in another thread, and I ordered those from superbrightleds.com.

FYI, red would probably be the optimal choice of color because it preserves your night vision the best. Blue is actually the worst color for your eyes at night, but ohh well. I thought it looked good, and I can still see fine driving at night, so it's not really a problem.

FYI, red would probably be the optimal choice of color because it preserves your night vision the best. Blue is actually the worst color for your eyes at night, but ohh well. I thought it looked good, and I can still see fine driving at night, so it's not really a problem.

hmm, explain what you mean by this - I was thinking, when I get my car, to do an entirely blue theme like you, but what issues would I hit?

I personally have relatively bad issues with lights forming starbursts at night, not bad enough to seek medical attention, but worse than other people from what I gather - however, I'm pretty sure, for me at least, blue is the least likely color to do this...

and I personally think blue can definitely be made a very visible color otherwise with LED's... not sure in the context of a car dash...

I just know red is supposed to be the best light to preserve your night vision and blue is the worst because they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

That said, the only issues I'm having with night vision is due to two things. One is the crappy tint on my windows. It's getting all rippled and reflects the light from the gauges back in, so short of rolling my front windows down at night, I pretty much can't see out the side windows of my car. This is mainly just a pain when trying to park in a dark parking lot.

The other issue I'm having is that my gauges are wired to have the brightest blue back lighting when I have the head lights on. These things are bright and shining in my face. I either need to put a dimmer on them so they aren't so bright, or I need to reconfigure the wiring to have them in a different mode when the headlights are on.

Neither of these problems are directly related to the lights being blue. I really think the whole red is better thing it over hyped. I can still see fine with blue lights, given they aren't too bright.

Yea, I keep hearing bad things about Glowshift gauges. My Prosports certainly aren't the best, but they're alright (except that my oil pressure reads 20psi low, but that's due to a bad sender which Prosport said they will replace free of charge when I finally get around to sending it to them).

Honestly, I haven't even mounted it yet, lol. I've been wanting to fabricate some kind of swivel top laptop holder, but I don't see how I'm going to make it fit where my wife can still ride comfortably in the passenger seat. I'll have to see how much aluminum I have left over after making my skid plate. Then I might just make a drop in stand and secure the laptop via Velcro strips. I doubt my wife will want the laptop in her face every time we take a road trip, so it will have to be easily removable.

That's kind of what I was thinking.. but if I get one I'm afraid my floor board's going to fall out while I'm racing.

Really though, I'm only going to be running the laptop if I'm data logging, or switching maps at the gas station. The rest of the time it'll be in its case tucked under the seat or going with me when it's parked. I think for now it can just ride shotgun.

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